K was born this evening at 2:10am. Weeks of prodromal labour but the "active" labour was only 3 hrs. She was 41w3d. I'll be interested to see if that means she does better with nursing since she's "older" or whether it matters. I'm so glad that she's here, I've waited so long.

She nursed like a champ right after birth (about 15 min in), and nursed well the first night. She's got a good "latch" already, we had a bit of trauma the first night from letting her suck without trying to get her on to deep, but we'll correct that pretty quick I'm sure, got to get some new Newman's cream. She's got a strong head, and can lunge in, and get herself on already. Not really a wobbly head at all.

I think that the night is going nicely until about 3 am, then she wakes up and nurses almost continuously, nurse, sleep 15 min, scrunk, then nurse, then wake, then nurse, then sleep, then wake up srunking again. Grrrr. By about 5 or 6 I was in tears cause I hadn't slept through any of that. My right arm goes completely numb, and my left goes partly numb after sleeping on it. Even when I get to roll over I just hurt so much I'm not sleeping well.

At 7 or 8 I'd done this up down routine so much that I couldn't even latch her, my arm was too numb to support the breast, there was too much milk (even overnight) and I was too tired to focus on getting her on.

I think I went back and forth too much last night cause the letdowns were strong all night. They're still coming on after about only 10-20 seconds I think. Certainly not a long time. And she's already gulping before the letdown so she gets mad at the letdown, and then after that there's tons. The left side has a slightly lower supply so it's not as bad. But I need to slow the right so that it doesn't get so full overnight.

Right now she's sleeping in the evening, which is not the best as it seems that if she's awake in the evening she sleeps longer into the night. I'd rather have the nurse, nap, wake, annoyed in the evening and cluster nurse, than overnight. I have to move the cluster feed somehow, I don't love it at 3 am.

... the world is completely different. When she doesn't nurse over and over in the middle of night, but then still wakes up and just does NOT go to sleep... the next day just goes so much better. I can think through the morning nurse and get her fed on the first full-from-the-night breast much more calmly, I can think through when to switch to the other side. I can not crash at the same time as she starts to scream (and was it less than last night? maybe?), I can cluster nurse all night, and then guess what ... SHE SLEEPS again better the NEXT NIGHT!

The better it gets, the better it gets. I'm amazed how much the day before affects the next day. I always think of this journey as what affect the morning or day before has on the nightly colic-y behaviour etc but I'm always learning new things that factor into just what makes it better or worse.